It is an issue of l2p. The most direct way to break D/P thieves, and prevent them from spamming through their blackpowder field, is to find a way to stand right into it when it goes down. If they spam heartseeker through it, it will hit you and break their stealth. This screws up their build because blackpowder costs 6 initiative and doesn't actually stealth them (the additional 3 initiative heartseeker does).

To the others: really guys, ether you're bringing a glass cannon yourself, or you're not bringing a stun break. L2p.

This isn't entirely true, HS hitting something will still leave the thief in stealth. Whether this is a bug or not, it's definitely something I actually try and hit someone mid-fight with in addition to the stealth -> backstab for moar dmg. (I run S/D + D/P in WvW regularly)

This isn't entirely true, HS hitting something will still leave the thief in stealth. Whether this is a bug or not, it's definitely something I actually try and hit someone mid-fight with in addition to the stealth -> backstab for moar dmg. (I run S/D + D/P in WvW regularly)

Yes, the 1st Heartseeker out of the Black Powder field will NOT reveal the thief. If the thief decides to Heartseeker through the field multiple times in order to stack stealth, they are then revealed if they hit anything.

Any thief can Heartseeker through the field twice given they have full initiative to start with, however if they thief brings the Infusion of Shadow trait in the adept Shadow Arts line then they can do up to 3 heartseekers through a single black powder field effectively stacking a 6-8 second stealth.

Since my build uses this I know that it is highly effective and could be borderline Overpowered. The biggest reason that people have trouble fighting thieves is that they don't understand the mechanics of them and therefore do not know how to fight a thief properly.

My main prof is a thief and I am lvl 41, I spvp and tpvp

Here are a few tips for fighting versus thieves and for arguments sake lets assume that the enemy thief is a D/P stealth thief.

1. KEEP MOVING. Basically this is for avoiding backstabs which will be the primary burst damage for any good/decent D/P thief. If you run straight it is super easy to backstab you, trust me and standing still waiting for the thief to unstealth is worse. A maneuver I like to do when a thief is stealth around me is running in circles while swinging my weapon, this makes it much more difficult for the thief to land a successful backstab on you. Backstab will do double damage if they hit the side or the back so if it hits the front the damage is still high but MUCH more bearable.

2. Predict where the thief is. Yes I know for many of you this seems to be nearly impossible but once you understand a few things it becomes much easier. Stealth does not reduce or negate any damage ever, nor does it make the thief incapable of being hit. Stealth also only lasts a certain duration depending on how they are entering stealth.

That being said try to predict the amount of time the thief has remaining in their stealth and understand that a thief can only go so far until being revealed. Also try to predict where they are going to go.

3. Spam your 1 skill. Unless you are using ranged weapons, you can continually spam your auto attack or 1 skill in order to possibly damage the thief and can also indicate if the thief is around you. If you hit the thief while spamming your 1 skill you will see your character completing the combo instead of just swinging back and forth, this tells you that you hit the thief, very useful against shadow refuge.

4. Don't run away. The thief has the highest mobility in the game and trying to simply run away from a thief will only lead to you getting backstabbed. You will not be able to escape a good thief most of the time if they have decided to pursue you. Fight it out, the fight is not over until that flag is driven into your face so just be aggressive.

Combining all of those tips, you should be able to put up a better fight versus thieves.

Stealth classes that are built on the stealth + huge burst are nearly always OP in MMOs, GW2 is no different, in fact as a fundamental design it is probably the most OP example I have played.

Take the stealth itself, in most other MMOs I've played there are all or most of the following:

- Classes or consumbles that can detect stealth.
- Damage knocks players out of stealth.
- You can't enter stealth in combat by normal means.
- In combat stealth is rightly recognized as a get out of jail free card, so normally this is one skill on a long cooldown (2mins plus)

GW2 has none of that and multple in-combat stealths, which results in the most OP stealth mechanics out there.

When you combine with it huge burst + best mobility, it is just a complete failure of a design that they will never be able to balance, just like most other games fail to balance similar classes, which tend to see-saw between OP and UP, quite why game designers can't grasp this and repeat the same mistake again and again is a mystery.

People also make the mistake of talking about a 1 v 1 situation, that is not really the issue, the problem occurs in teamfights, which is why even very good players like Teldo suddenly find themselves downed and exclaim "what was that? Oh it was the ******* thief", as when your attention is elsewhere a thief is by far the hardest to spot coming due to stealth + instant gap closers.

As for WvW never have I played a class so OP that it completely breaks a fundamental principle of that type of PvP which is risk vs reward, the balance of which is totally off, far, far too little risk.

Which is why people will rightly continue to complain, there might be more goodwill toward thief if it was particulary difficult to play like a burg in LOTRO, but spamming 3 and half buttons in the new FOTM build (s/d) with the s/d equipped twice is well...

Thieves ARE a high risk, high reward profession. You go full burst and you either kill your target immediately or die to enemy retaliation (the action not the condition). Their stealth lasts for a maximum of 4 seconds (where you deal no damage) per ability and you have a 3 second stealth down-time after you deal damage from stealth. Stealth is pretty balanced in this game.

I have said this time and time again: glass cannons will die to glass cannons. Most people go glass cannon because they want to do damage then complain when a thief comes out of nowhere and kills them, but if they had gone for some extra toughness they would have survived and easily fought back.

I play a D/D Elementalist in WvW with Knights gear and all-stat accessories and I have never found Thieves to be much of a problem (I am also a Thief "main"). The most that a thief can do to me is bring my down by 60-70% which I heal up in no-time while also bringing them down by the same amount. I have only ever gotten killed by Thieves when outplayed and not because of the profession's mechanics. A guildmate plays a bunker BM Ranger and he has no problems 1v1 vs Thieves either.

You can't expect to go into WvW without defense and not get insta-killed by any burst build. Thieves are no exception.

Not really, the only thing dumb is failing to recognize a badly designed class that needs a redesign.

BartenderMan, on 29 May 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

Thieves ARE a high risk, high reward profession. You go full burst and you either kill your target immediately or die to enemy retaliation (the action not the condition). Their stealth lasts for a maximum of 4 seconds (where you deal no damage) per ability and you have a 3 second stealth down-time after you deal damage from stealth. Stealth is pretty balanced in this game.

I have said this time and time again: glass cannons will die to glass cannons. Most people go glass cannon because they want to do damage then complain when a thief comes out of nowhere and kills them, but if they had gone for some extra toughness they would have survived and easily fought back.

I play a D/D Elementalist in WvW with Knights gear and all-stat accessories and I have never found Thieves to be much of a problem (I am also a Thief "main"). The most that a thief can do to me is bring my down by 60-70% which I heal up in no-time while also bringing them down by the same amount. I have only ever gotten killed by Thieves when outplayed and not because of the profession's mechanics. A guildmate plays a bunker BM Ranger and he has no problems 1v1 vs Thieves either.

You can't expect to go into WvW without defense and not get insta-killed by any burst build. Thieves are no exception.

My thief "glass cannon" has much, much more survability than say my necro in WvW, stealth + mobilty > anything else, thieves are not high risk they are the opposite low risk (especially in WvW), that is one of the problems. This is why WvW (roamers + smallgroup) and hotjoin are full of thieves, all reward, pretty easy to play, very little risk.

Thief (and to a lesser extent mesmer + ele + ranger, BM ranger is also broken in respect you can build a tanky character with good condi removal, endless endurance, mobility, lots of healing and then add a DPS pet, that pets are not tied to your stats is another mind numblingly bad piece of design) are not high risk compared to other classes when they go glass cannon, because they have vastly superior disengage, thieves are low risk.

Nor is thief always a "glass cannon", apparently the FotM s/d build has passed you by where bewteen the near spammable evades, boon stealing, dodges, shadow returns with infiltators strike and stealth you barely get hit, even if stunned you have three stun breakers.

As for 1v1 as I said earlier not really the issue, in tPvP the bad design is when people are in team fights as stealth + instant gap closer is pure cheese and even very good players like Teldo get instant gibbed, because it is not possible to react when your attention is elsewhere. In 1v1 the only issues are most thief builds are not fun to fight against (constantly having to re-target or guesstimate where an opponent is not fun gameplay for many, fighting the UI is generally regarded as lame) and that in WvW unless the thief is terrible, most of the time he will simply disengage if it looks like he is going to lose, hence breaks the basic principle of risk vs reward.

Hotjoin & WvW (roamers + smallgroup) are full of thieves for a reason, the class is OP in many situations. It also puts the skill emphasis on your opponent rather than you, in that it generally takes more to avoid your damage than it does for you to deliver that damage, not that is alone in that respect certain mesmer & ranger builds also share this problem, class needs a redesign.

Having to redesign a class that is played exactly as it is intended to be, and is also balanced around said design, is dumb.

Stealth offers 3 things: surprise attacks, easy disengage, stealth attacks. If a Thief uses stealth to disengage, then you have won the fight. If they use it to surprise attack you they will either kill you in no time (if built with no survival) or have to sit for 3 seconds completely exposed (I will get to dodges later). If they use it to perform a stealth attack, then they are using their class mechanic (the blasphemy!).

Now when it comes to mobility I'm going to guess you are specifically referring to the plethora of dodge abilities that are available to a Thief. Only 3 of those dodge abilities actually deal damage: Death Blossom (for condition Thieves), Flanking strike and Disabling Shot; all these abilities cost initiative and have pretty mediocre damage when compared to everything else a Thief can do. The only other skills that dodge are Roll For Initiative (on a 60 second cooldown) and Withdraw; Withdraw probably needs a small nerf seeing as it's a 15 second cooldown and is too strong when combined with Vigorous Recovery. Finally you have Signet of Agility which probably also needs a nerf seeing as it gives you the ability to have 6 dodges on a 30 second cooldown.

Now when you look at everything listed above you will realize that even though everything listed makes Thieves hard to kill, it does nothing to help them actually kill their target. Any time spent dodging is time spent not dealing damage. Any time spent in Stealth is also time not dealing damage. While a Thief can combine stealth + mobility + bust they will never excel at any of them and can't use 2 of them at the same time, except for dodging while in stealth which still deals no damage. If a Thief wanted to focus on bursting a target down they will go with a backstab build and go with a more offensive skill and trait lineup and end up not doing anything else as effectively. Side note: Engineers have as much dodges as Thieves (if not more) and I don't see anybody complaining about them being so hard to kill.

Now to mention the "FotM" S/D build you're so fond of. S/D is by no means a burst damage build; sword AA is too slow for that. Also, the more dodges your run with, the less stealth you will have available to you and vice-versa. Unless you have magically unlocked an extra utility slot or somehow got your hands on 10 more trait points, you will never be the master of stealth, mobility and burst without having to sacrifice the effectiveness of at least one of them. 3 stun breaks? So what? Every profession has at least 2 stun breaks they can have on themselves without having to alter their builds. Why should Thieves (who are supposed to be the most mobile profession) be any different? And if you go with the 3 stun breaks you will have less sources of reliable stealth. The only frustrating thing about Thieves is their ability to run away, but who cares if they do? They have gone to lick their wounds because they couldn't take you down and that is victory in and of itself. It is risk vs reward, because they took no risk by running away and got no reward for it.

Now when you look at the "broken" builds (d/d Ele, cantrip Mesmer, BM Ranger and Thieves) they all have 1 weakness in common: they are weak in group (zerg) situations. They can be really strong in small skirmishes, but they are horrible when it comes time to defend or take down a tower, keep, etc; and that is essentially what WvW is all about (I only reference WvW because sPvP is boring and pointless). So while they may be strong in taking out a target or two, in the end they aren't doing much to help their servers. Necromancers are easy targets for Theives, Mesmers, etc but they're absolute monsters in larger group fights. (Elementalists are probably the exception seeing as they can switch out D/D for a staff before a fight without needing to change their build and still be relatively effective)

I repeat myself: Thieves are not badly designed; they are designed to do exactly what they are doing right now and they do it well. The only reason you see them everywhere is because they punish noobs much harder than any other profession (and with less effort) and they are incredibly fun to play (which, in the end, is all that really matters).

Having to redesign a class that is played exactly as it is intended to be, and is also balanced around said design, is dumb.

The fact you think that because the class plays as per the design that it somehow validates the design, is dumb.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

If a Thief uses stealth to disengage, then you have won the fight.

Wrong, you have won the fight (probably) in tPvP as you've kept a node / increased your teams chances of winning a team fight / capped a node. In WvW you have lost as part of the fundamental principles of that type of WvW is risk vs reward, so even if you "win" the fight you get no reward, the thief suffers no penatly for "losing", what is more in many cases all that happens is the fight will be reset so a thief never actually "loses", plus you can often lose in terms of being held up, if you're running back to help out at a keep / garrison, etc then a thief delays you, the thief wins and wins simply through poor class design.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

Now when it comes to mobility I'm going to guess you are specifically referring to the plethora of dodge abilities that are available to a Thief. Only 3 of those dodge abilities actually deal damage: Death Blossom (for condition Thieves), Flanking strike and Disabling Shot; all these abilities cost initiative and have pretty mediocre damage when compared to everything else a Thief can do. The only other skills that dodge are Roll For Initiative (on a 60 second cooldown) and Withdraw; Withdraw probably needs a small nerf seeing as it's a 15 second cooldown and is too strong when combined with Vigorous Recovery. Finally you have Signet of Agility which probably also needs a nerf seeing as it gives you the ability to have 6 dodges on a 30 second cooldown.

When I refer to mobility I am talking about everything from being able to cover ground quickly to engage or disengage to the evasive skills yo mention above, from the numerous instant gap closers / openers (steal, heartseeker, infilitrators strike, shadowstrike and so on) to the fact these skills (steal aside) are spammable.

As for initiative cost, go watch LoLJumper play s/d when he streams, you will also see from his build initiative is nearly inifinite when you spec for it. As for damage, yes for a thief things like flanking strike are pretty mediocre damage wise, but when you have numerous gap openers / closers, numerous dodes from signet of agility + energy sigil + vigorous recovery, stealth, evades, a spammable cripple and the abillity to steal two boons in 1 and half seconds, then you have gained an awful ot of surviability, still have the best disengage in the game and do it all whilst sitting on a base 75% crit hit chance (in sPvP), 87% from behind with 90%+ health.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

Engineers have as much dodges as Thieves (if not more) and I don't see anybody complaining about them being so hard to kill.

People don't complain, because engies cannot disengage from 95% of the fights they are losing like a thief, so they adhere to the basic principle of risk vs reward.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

Every profession has at least 2 stun breaks they can have on themselves without having to alter their builds.

You obviously need to play more classes, just because most thief, mesmer & ele builds have stunbreaks (or psudeo stun breaks in the case of phase retreat) coming out the posterior, doesnt mean it goes for all classes, for example engys, most builds have one stunbreaker (usually elxir S or elixir R), necros, again normally only one stunbreaker (the worm or spectral walk), etc, nor merely is just the number of stunbreakers it is the cooldown, the application and the cost, 48 seconds (traited, 60 seconds untraited) on my engy using a very valuable utility slot for that class, does not really compare with a spamable infiltrators strike on my thief on my main hand weapon.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

It is risk vs reward, because they took no risk by running away and got no reward for it..

Utter drivel, if I am wandering about in WvW on say my necro then I see some guy I engage him, if I lose then that was the risk I took, if I win then that is the reward for the risk I took, on my thief (and to a lesser extent my mesmer) there is virtually no risk, if it looks like I am losing I can simply disengage 95% of the time, the class breaks a fundamental rule of PvP, terrible design.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

Now when you look at the "broken" builds (d/d Ele, cantrip Mesmer, BM Ranger and Thieves) they all have 1 weakness in common: they are weak in group (zerg) situations.

My thief is fine in zerg situations, now obviously not in the two zergs smashing together sort of way that a warrior or a guardian is good at, but after the initial collision when it is more open, amongst the chaos a thief is very difficult to pick out, it is very easy to stealth off an opponent and this means you are truly excellent at finsihing downed players right in the heart of the enemy in a way other classes cannot do, thief also operates perfectly fine targetting players around the edges. As for what WvW is all about, it isn't really about anything as along with hotjoin the design makes it largely pointless, it is no test of skill, winning is virtually entirely down to coverage, the maps are too small to require real tactics or organisation, etc. Some people like to zerg about or PvDoor, others prefer smaller groups.

BartenderMan, on 30 May 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

I repeat myself: Thieves are not badly designed; they are designed to do exactly what they are doing right now and they do it well. The only reason you see them everywhere is because they punish noobs much harder than any other profession (and with less effort) and they are incredibly fun to play (which, in the end, is all that really matters).

You can repeat yourself all you like, the fact they may fufil their intended design does not validate that design in the slightest, it is a terrible premise for a class that will always be OP in many situations (or maybe UP eventually like other games where they overnerf a class, but fail to address the fact it is the core design that is the issue), so I'll repeat myself the class design is terrible it needs a re-think. And no what actually matters is, is the game fun to play, I realize low skill floor + OP is fun for some noobs, but at the same time playing against a class that does not have to risk in the same way as most other classes is not fun for many people, hence the complaints.

This is all your opinion and it seems that you will not change your mind, so I am going to ignore everything else you mentioned and focus on one thing:

Conkers, on 30 May 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

You obviously need to play more classes, just because most thief, mesmer & ele builds have stunbreaks (or psudeo stun breaks in the case of phase retreat) coming out the posterior, doesnt mean it goes for all classes, for example engys, most builds have one stunbreaker (usually elxir S or elixir R), necros, again normally only one stunbreaker (the worm or spectral walk), etc, nor merely is just the number of stunbreakers it is the cooldown, the application and the cost, 48 seconds (traited, 60 seconds untraited) on my engy using a very valuable utility slot for that class, does not really compare with a spamable infiltrators strike on my thief on my main hand weapon.

Infiltrator's Strike's stun break is the only stun break advantage Thieves have over other professions. Their other stun breaks have equally long cooldowns and also take utility slots. And I do play other classes (I have 5 maxed out 80s and working on another 2) and the only class who has to screw over their build to slot one in is the Necro, but they don't care too much about getting stunned seeing as they mostly run with zergs and will have stability from outer sources. And in what situation will having a plethora of stun breakers be really useful? In most cases 1 stun break is enough to get you out of trouble, and in those other situations you are most likely going to die anyway; stun break or no.

Wrong, you have won the fight (probably) in tPvP as you've kept a node / increased your teams chances of winning a team fight / capped a node. In WvW you have lost as part of the fundamental principles of that type of WvW is risk vs reward, so even if you "win" the fight you get no reward, the thief suffers no penatly for "losing", what is more in many cases all that happens is the fight will be reset so a thief never actually "loses", plus you can often lose in terms of being held up, if you're running back to help out at a keep / garrison, etc then a thief delays you, the thief wins and wins simply through poor class design.

You took WvW and flipped it to fit your argument. Everything you said for the other player can be said about the thief also.

If we go straight basics just because someone rolls a thief he doesn't run around ganking people. So a thief could be going back to a keep or whatever and he is delayed by another class. Sure he can escape easy but he was delayed if he wasn't running in out of combat speed the whole time (see how I flipped it). The fundamental principle of WvW is risk vs reward? Wtf is that the principle of WvW is for your side to win. The thief did lose if he ran away if his intent was to kill the player.

In the end this part of the discussion is all about what you consider a win and a loss.

If on tuesday I decide to take my guardian and run around naked trolling people right outside my spawn with outmanned buff I get killed 5 times in a row did I lose? My intent was to troll I succeeded in trolling so in my mind I won.

You took WvW and flipped it to fit your argument. Everything you said for the other player can be said about the thief also.

If we go straight basics just because someone rolls a thief he doesn't run around ganking people. So a thief could be going back to a keep or whatever and he is delayed by another class. Sure he can escape easy but he was delayed if he wasn't running in out of combat speed the whole time (see how I flipped it). The fundamental principle of WvW is risk vs reward? Wtf is that the principle of WvW is for your side to win. The thief did lose if he ran away if his intent was to kill the player.

In the end this part of the discussion is all about what you consider a win and a loss.

No it can't be flipped (in any meaningful way) because different classes have differing levels of disengage / mobility.

A thief running away (in WvW), "lost" the fight, however he did not have to pay any consequences for the other player outplaying him, nor does the other player get his deserved reward for outplaying him, hence he breaks the principle of risk vs reward which is a pretty fundamental principle of PvP.

And yes I realize everyone even guardians, necros, etc sometimes escape from an encounter that is going badly, the point is it is ridiculously easy on a thief to the point where the level of risk is so low it is broken.

This is all your opinion and it seems that you will not change your mind

Some of it is my opinion such as it being a bad design, some of it is fact such as there is much less risk on a class like a thief when you can disengage so easily, but I guess you have your opinion and I have mine. Not that you need to worry much, Anet are so underesourced they are still fixing core class bugs 9 months in so there is zero chance of thief or any other class being redesigned.

No it can't be flipped (in any meaningful way) because different classes have differing levels of disengage / mobility.

A thief running away (in WvW), "lost" the fight, however he did not have to pay any consequences for the other player outplaying him, nor does the other player get his deserved reward for outplaying him, hence he breaks the principle of risk vs reward which is a pretty fundamental principle of PvP.

And yes I realize everyone even guardians, necros, etc sometimes escape from an encounter that is going badly, the point is it is ridiculously easy on a thief to the point where the level of risk is so low it is broken.

So if we are talking about all classes then its not just thief but any class who has more mobility than any other class. We are also talking about builds here a ranged thief running P/P and shortbow with withdraw as the heal will have a much harder time getting away than what you normally see this would be against any class but also a class specced for more mobility.

If you went all out mobility for your class then that will be your strength but other classes have more mobility than you are capable of I don't see how that is bad design.

Thief is suppose to be the class that picks its fights and can disengage at will. It has been said many times when I thief stays around to long or doesn't disengage when they should that is when they die. Usually that is the case.

So if we are talking about all classes then its not just thief but any class who has more mobility than any other class. We are also talking about builds here a ranged thief running P/P and shortbow with withdraw as the heal will have a much harder time getting away than what you normally see this would be against any class but also a class specced for more mobility.

If you went all out mobility for your class then that will be your strength but other classes have more mobility than you are capable of I don't see how that is bad design.

Thief is suppose to be the class that picks its fights and can disengage at will. It has been said many times when I thief stays around to long or doesn't disengage when they should that is when they die. Usually that is the case.

It is a question of degree, having some classes more mobile than others is fine, having some classes with better disengage through having things like stealth, stability, gap openers, etc is also fine, having a class with possilbly the best mobility, but also multiple in combat stealths / abilty to chain stealths / stealth at will off NPCs, etc is just too much disengage (at least in WvW).

9 times out of 10 if I misjudge a situation or am simply outplayed on my thief I can escape, and therefore escape the consequences of my bad play / bad decision or of the other persons good play, which in PvP where you are supposed to have risk vs reward is an utterly broken design. That you can make a thief build with much less disengage that 99% of players would never play doesn't change that.

The difference when solo is quite marked, many people literally do not even try once they realize you are a thief, many of the same people that just give my thief a wide berth as we go past each other would be chasing me all over the map if I were on a different class.

I've played thief type characters in many MMOs (Rift, LOTRO, RoM and so on) I've never played one that is as risk free in an open world type PvP as my thief in WvW, terrible design.

Preface: I know how to fight thieves. I have a level 80 thief who I use in WvW and I know how to combat thieves, how to guess where they go. I know all of their stealth options, and what they gain from different weapon sets.

Stealth is an unbalanced effect in GW2 that until this last patch had 0 hard-counters to it.

Thieves have the ability to endlessly restealth when traited properly

Thieves have the best overall mobility in WvW especially over broken ground. They are challenged only by Rangers and Warriors (since the ele nerf) in speed travel over open ground.

The current hard counter to stealth counters only the STEALTH portion of thieves, not the Mobility portion.

Thieves are designed with mobility and stealth in mid and as a result they are a severely *unbalanced* class. For the most part they cannot go toe-to-toe in combat well due to this design philosophy and as a result their entire build is skewed toward stealth and teleports. Repeated Stealth and teleports and that's where I think they are flawed. Part of the problem is the design behind Initiative. Let's forget for a moment that the only other class that has a weapon skill that can grant Stealth has it on a 30s cooldown, and that thieves are the only class that gets a ground targetted teleport as a weapon skill.

Untraited, a thief can be expected to be able to use ANY of their 6-initiative moves (the most expensive move they have) every 8 seconds. Granted this means that a thief may have to sacrifice their other weapon options, but the fact remains they essentially have ALL of their skills set to an 8 second GCD. It's actually better than that since not all thief skills cost 6 initiative but it's food for thought. Imagine for a moment if a Necromancer with a staff could use Reaper's Mark every 8 seconds. Or a warrior using Tremor. That's right an Axe/Mace warrior who could Tremor every 8 seconds. Think about it. An Axe/Mace Warrior, using the thief initiative model, would be able to tremor twice instantly, still have Eviscerate available, and be able to repeat a tremor every 8 seconds of combat. That is what the thief class is allowed to play with right now.

Now let's think again on the strengths that have been granted to a thief. They can Teleport at 900 range, Or go invisible. Every. 8. Seconds. Off their weapon skills alone. Without Traits. This is why many people consider thieves to be overpowered. I personally don't think they are but I can definitely say they're highly skewed and unbalanced. That and because a lot of non-thieves don't understand how thieves play but that can't be applied universally.

What can fix this? Honestly it's hard to say. More available counters to stealth would be nice. Maybe as utility slots forcing people to consider utility over builds. Revamping Initiative? I'd say so yes. I'd propose the easy fix would be reducing the intitiative regen rate, but increasing the base initiative pool. Make spamming skills ineffectively more dangerous, with a longer wait if you bottom out. Or revamp the system even more and make it an acquired resource, like Adrenaline. I'm no game designer but I feel either of those solutions would be a long step towards balancing out the class. Granted they'd have to tweak the viability in straight up combat too but I think it'd be a step in the right direction.

And maybe they should put the 4-second reveal back in WvW. I understand why 3 second is there for PvE but WvW is a lot more like PvP than PvE.

Any thief can Heartseeker through the field twice given they have full initiative to start with, however if they thief brings the Infusion of Shadow trait in the adept Shadow Arts line then they can do up to 3 heartseekers through a single black powder field effectively stacking a 6-8 second stealth.

if i do it against the wall, i can get up to five heartseekers through the Black Powder if i'm lucky, four if i'm not.

Preface: I know how to fight thieves. I have a level 80 thief who I use in WvW and I know how to combat thieves, how to guess where they go. I know all of their stealth options, and what they gain from different weapon sets.

Stealth is an unbalanced effect in GW2 that until this last patch had 0 hard-counters to it.

Thieves have the ability to endlessly restealth when traited properly

Thieves have the best overall mobility in WvW especially over broken ground. They are challenged only by Rangers and Warriors (since the ele nerf) in speed travel over open ground.

The current hard counter to stealth counters only the STEALTH portion of thieves, not the Mobility portion.

Thieves are designed with mobility and stealth in mid and as a result they are a severely *unbalanced* class. For the most part they cannot go toe-to-toe in combat well due to this design philosophy and as a result their entire build is skewed toward stealth and teleports. Repeated Stealth and teleports and that's where I think they are flawed. Part of the problem is the design behind Initiative. Let's forget for a moment that the only other class that has a weapon skill that can grant Stealth has it on a 30s cooldown, and that thieves are the only class that gets a ground targetted teleport as a weapon skill.

Untraited, a thief can be expected to be able to use ANY of their 6-initiative moves (the most expensive move they have) every 8 seconds. Granted this means that a thief may have to sacrifice their other weapon options, but the fact remains they essentially have ALL of their skills set to an 8 second GCD. It's actually better than that since not all thief skills cost 6 initiative but it's food for thought. Imagine for a moment if a Necromancer with a staff could use Reaper's Mark every 8 seconds. Or a warrior using Tremor. That's right an Axe/Mace warrior who could Tremor every 8 seconds. Think about it. An Axe/Mace Warrior, using the thief initiative model, would be able to tremor twice instantly, still have Eviscerate available, and be able to repeat a tremor every 8 seconds of combat. That is what the thief class is allowed to play with right now.

Now let's think again on the strengths that have been granted to a thief. They can Teleport at 900 range, Or go invisible. Every. 8. Seconds. Off their weapon skills alone. Without Traits. This is why many people consider thieves to be overpowered. I personally don't think they are but I can definitely say they're highly skewed and unbalanced. That and because a lot of non-thieves don't understand how thieves play but that can't be applied universally.

What can fix this? Honestly it's hard to say. More available counters to stealth would be nice. Maybe as utility slots forcing people to consider utility over builds. Revamping Initiative? I'd say so yes. I'd propose the easy fix would be reducing the intitiative regen rate, but increasing the base initiative pool. Make spamming skills ineffectively more dangerous, with a longer wait if you bottom out. Or revamp the system even more and make it an acquired resource, like Adrenaline. I'm no game designer but I feel either of those solutions would be a long step towards balancing out the class. Granted they'd have to tweak the viability in straight up combat too but I think it'd be a step in the right direction.

And maybe they should put the 4-second reveal back in WvW. I understand why 3 second is there for PvE but WvW is a lot more like PvP than PvE.

Forgive my wall of text.

Most thought out reply so far. My main problem with WvW thieves is C&D. It works on ANYTHING which I just think is dumb. A thief have a get out of jail free card if he hits anything like an animal and he goes invisible; and you know how much ambient creatures there are in WvW. I really think C&D should be a 2 phase skill; phase 1 marks your target, and phase 2 is the actual staab which only stealth you if you hit the marked target. This also make thieve work at actually hitting their targets instead of bouncing between little animals and get free stealth.

Most thought out reply so far. My main problem with WvW thieves is C&D. It works on ANYTHING which I just think is dumb. A thief have a get out of jail free card if he hits anything like an animal and he goes invisible; and you know how much ambient creatures there are in WvW. I really think C&D should be a 2 phase skill; phase 1 marks your target, and phase 2 is the actual staab which only stealth you if you hit the marked target. This also make thieve work at actually hitting their targets instead of bouncing between little animals and get free stealth.

C&D is hard enough to land on decent players. This change would make it near impossible, so no thanks.